Gleipnir

Episodes 1-3

Gleipnir opens with a jovial Takahiro Sakurai climbing out of a vending machine, and to my delight, it only gets stranger from there. I have a lot to say about Gleipnir, but I think I have to start here, because my predominant impression of the show is of one that embraces its own weirdness and messiness with the confidence of a big fuzzy hug from a living dog costume. In the abstract, it resembles the kind of “death game” genre most notoriously exemplified by Future Diary, where a large cast of characters with varying powers fight each other within the context of a mysterious supernatural contest. Here, people collect gold tokens that can be used in the aforementioned vending machine to get the aforementioned Sakurai-voiced character (who's probably an alien) to grant them wishes. These wishes, however, seem to mutate both the desires and forms of their wishers, and consequently there's now a bunch of token-hungry monsters on the loose in a small town. This is, ostensibly, what Gleipnir is about, but it also has very little to do with what Gleipnir's about.

At three episodes in, the proverbial magic number when it comes to giving new series a fair shot, Gleipnir has barley concerned itself with the details of this game, or whether or not it can be considered a “game” at all. Instead, Gleipnir has focused on the fiery intersection of the lives of its two protagonists, Shuichi and Clair, and its main concern has been exploring the different facets of their characters as seen through their new and tempestuous relationship. Putting the in-your-face strangeness of the presentation aside (which I will get to very soon), the pulpy premise actually belies a fascinating psychosexual character drama. I was excited to check this show out purely because its concept was wild, but I was legitimately compelled when it chose to begin with, and focus on, the interiority of its characters above the structure of its plot. While it's not exactly graceful in doing so, I think it's fair to say that grace isn't a concern when you have your main character transform into a big hollow mascot costume.

On that note, let's talk about Shuichi first. He's an immediately familiar archetype: a quietly sad small town boy with a dark secret, a la Takao Kasuga from Flowers of Evil. The defamiliarized rotoscope of Flowers of Evil is one of my favorite anime adaptations of anything ever, and it's also a useful reference point for some of Gleipnir's thematic ambitions. Kasuga's dark secret, for instance, is more or less the same as Shuichi's, along with every other quietly sad small town boy in existence—they're all going through adolescence. Shuichi's puberty metaphor just happens to be a bit more blatant than the rest, since he literally turns into a giant, hairy, horny monster that he can't entirely control. It ain't subtle, but teenage years aren't ones for subtlety. Shuichi is scared and disgusted by himself, so like many people with depression, he tries to plaster over it with an aggressively normal façade. This is, however, a stopgap, not a solution. Luckily, he runs into someone who can help him work through his hangups about his new body. Unfortunately for him, that someone is Clair.

Continuing The Flowers of Evil analogy, Clair is the Sawa Nakamura of this story—an aggressive, antisocial girl who takes an interest in Shuichi and kicks off their relationship by blackmailing him. Her personality is pretty much the polar opposite of Shuichi's, so from a character drama standpoint, they end up complementing each other nicely. Clair's smug wickedness also revs the show into immediate high gear, as she forces Shuichi not only to confront the reality of his own situation, but also to begin helping out with hers, whether he likes it or not. Like Flowers of Evil, however, the show emphasizes their similarities in spite of their myriad differences. There's an undeniable connection between them, and Gleipnir illustrates that connection in a wholly unique way.

Okay, that was a lot of preamble to get to the meat of what Gleipnir is about: the boy protagonist transforms into a superpowered mascot costume with a fleshy interior, and the girl protagonist climbs inside and pilots him like a furry mech. This actually doesn't happen until the second episode, but this action is so important, so brazen, and will likely inform whether or not you decide this show is for you. It's a sex metaphor with all the bluntness of a sledgehammer, colored with dialogue deliberately dripping with innuendo. The Oedipal undertones of Evangelion are child's play compared to this scene, which has multiple lines straight-up lifted from porn. Gleipnir's ace in the hole is that the traditional gender roles are reversed, with the woman in this equation penetrating the man and more or less running the show.

But this hot wet fursuit action isn't just a metaphor for sex; this is defamiliarized sex meant to conjure up and comment on the real thing. It's an important distinction to make, and I explicitly want to contrast Gleipnir with the similarly titillating opening episodes of DARLING in the FRANXX. Franxx's sex mechs promised subversion, but ultimately they had very little to say about relationships and a whole lot to say about regressive gender roles. Gleipnir is much more interesting, because it's actually concerned with exploring the act of sex itself. This isn't a sanitized “safe for TV” nudge and wink towards intercourse. This is actual intercourse, with all of the disgusting sights and sounds of fluids and mucus membranes. Sex is full of dichotomies, and especially so during one's adolescence. It's exciting and scary, intimate and depersonalizing, tender and gross. These contrasts are a big part of what makes sex so loaded with meaning, and while I've seen plenty of anime that address the complexities of sex, I don't think I've ever seen one as visceral to the senses (and literally full of viscera) as Gleipnir.

I think its dogged commitment to its own trashiness actually helps Gleipnir be so brazenly horny without clashing with the gravity of these larger thematic concerns. That's not to say, however, that any story can excuse fanservice so long as it is at least somewhat related to its messages. Gleipnir has plenty of lascivious shots that don't have anything to do with probing the relationship between Clair and Shuichi, and even their scenes aren't free from by-the-numbers titillations we've seen in thousands of other shows. Gleipnir also needs a big content warning, since Shuichi's first interaction with Clair ends with him beginning to pull the underwear off her unconscious body before he snaps to his senses and runs away in shame. This is meant to further the mascot-suit-as-puberty metaphor, and it's definitely supposed to be uncomfortable, but the tasteless way the camera leers on Clair's body totally undermines the scene. I don't begrudge anybody who soured on the show at that point. It's especially a shame because the later sexually-charged interactions between Clair and Shuichi, while still service-y, have an endearingly genuine awkwardness to them as the two fumble their way through figuring out their new unified body. Even though Clair is unequivocally the top in this situation, they're on equal footing in the emotional spectrum, as they each become privy to each other's vulnerabilities.

Gleipnir is deceptively dense with ideas, so I've honestly only scratched the surface of the things I wanted to discuss from these first three episodes. At the risk of being long-winded, however, my final major thought for this week is that Gleipnir is just plain fun and wholly embraces its own ridiculousness. Shuichi is kind of bland, but I love the nonchalance with which he introduces his big dog transformation. Clair, on the other hand, is a diabolically magnetic presence, and I only hope that the story is able to develop her character without completely sanding off the edges that make her interesting. Like, her “first time” with Shuichi ends with her murdering someone. That's just fantastic. Also, this adaptation has been surprisingly polished so far. I love the distinct character designs and the way their clothes are drawn with a sense of weight, and the animators truly go above and beyond when it comes to depicting the sliminess of Shuichi's mascot insides. For better or worse, the anime takes very few half measures.

Gleipnir will probably too weird and tasteless for most audiences, but it hits me right in my psychosexual body horror sweet spot. It's like David Cronenberg saw Evangelion and decided to make Asuka pilot Shinji. This hole was made for me—or perhaps, more appropriately, this form-fitting flesh-lined fursuit was made for me.

Rating:

Gleipnir is currently streaming on Funimation.

The state of the world has left Steve in despair! But never fear, he's still on Twitter too much.